I usually ignore self-important little whiners (like this one, for instance) who think the world would be a better place — for them — if it would only run on their agenda.
I mean, seriously. Life is just too short. Anyhow, Ayn Rand, for all her personal and literary faults, said all that ever needed to be said about such types in Atlas Shrugged.
Still, it’s fun to watch a master tear self-righteous losers to pieces. To wit: Here’s successful writer Larry Correia savagely fisking a HuffPo whine-a-thon by unsuccessful writer Lynn Shepherd. Shepherd thinks that the world’s most successful writer, JK Rowling, should step aside. Quit writing. Or at least quit publishing any work for grownups. Though Shepherd (generous soul that she is) would still “allow” Rowling to write for personal pleasure, or for children — as long as never an adult-oriented Rowlingian word ever again saw print.
Why? Well, because it’s just unfair that Rowling is doing so fabulously. She needs to stop writing to give other writers a fair chance. And if Rowling really cared about writing, she’d stop doing it.
You go, Larry.
(Harvard Crimson superiority fest in that first link c/o MJR.)
My god. How can anyone be that … What’s the word I’m looking for? Is there an appropriate word for this? I would have thought this woman’s friends would have tried to stop her – physically restrained her, if necessary – from ever submitting a piece like this. But then it’s hard to picture anyone who would parade her pettiness, envy and ignorance so publicly actually possessing friends.
What a brat. What a stupid, ignorant brat. I hope she never lives this down. What a loser.
And what sort of site has Huffpo become, that they would consent to publish it? “If JK Rowling Cares About Writing, She Should Stop Doing It?” Seriously? Who makes these decisioins?
I am flabbergasted. And good on Correia for shoving it down her throat.
Well, I suppose that my books might’ve sold if I could have just eliminated everyone better than me.
But then… what the hell would I read?
I was appalled (shouldn’t have been, of course) by the First Amendment article. I sent it to a retired academician friend, who in return sent back evidence that sometimes the good guys win. http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=519
Unbelievable; thanks Claire. If you wanna see the psychology of Modern America, that huffpo piece is it.
The challenge that lies ahead—more than 51,000 likes. Please, tell me this isn’t happening and that it’s just some wild hallucination.
From a reader’s POV ― it seems that Shepherd believes a reader only buys/chooses one author over another, and that he can’t or won’t buy more than one book/author at a time when shopping. Obviously Shepherd is not committed to reading, only to writing (hogwash).
If she were a truly-committed book reader, she would know that a buyer looks at all shelves, many authors, many subjects and genres, and chooses on the basis of mood and circumstance at the time, as well as interest or preference of author.
Shepherd should read Rowling’s Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination” ― before she opens her mouth ever again. (t wouldn’t hurt Harvard professor Herrnstein to read it either; apparently he wasn’t in the audience the day Rowling gave her address.)
http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/06/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination
That’s pretty amazing… Most died in the wool keynesians don’t go quite that far – at least not in such painful detail. And she has no idea, evidently… Universal absolute poverty – such an admirable goal. The fact that there are so many in agreement with her is painful, but not unexpected. They will, however, have to deal with TANSTAFL at some point, of course.
Actually, I’ll probably never know if I could be successful writing novels. I give my books away. I simply refuse to deal with the IRS and mostly write for my own amusement, which should suit ms. Lynn perfectly. But I don’t think it’s going to help her sell her books.
…. dyed in the wool kenesians. I think I typed a freudian slip there. 🙂
It’s created a real shite-storm in the self-pubbing blogosphere, which is currently experiencing its own fisking/shite-storm with traditional publishers, vs self-pubbed authors. Several authors are revealing the ugly side of trad. publishing, and that good old boys club doesn’t like it one bit. Very amusing.
That HuffPo article was unreal. The only person a writer is in competition with is herself.
Here’s the Passive Guy’s blog, where you can read some interesting comments both about the HuffPo post, Anne Rice’s response, and the ongoing, very interesting war between traditional and self publishers.
http://www.thepassivevoice.com/
WaterLily — Thanks for the link. I knew about the controversies between old publishing and new. But I hadn’t realized Shepherd’s article was blowing up so much of a storm. Since thepassivevoice.com is a busy place and the Rice article was already sliding down the page, here’s the permalink:
http://www.thepassivevoice.com/02/2014/if-jk-rowling-cares-about-writing-she-should-stop-doing-it-ann-rice-responds/
Lots of good, wicked comments. 🙂
I don’t read JK Rowling so this persons screed is even more astonishing.
Korn and Shepherd are the kind of people who, once they get the government they agitate for, are utterly surprised when they end up looking at the wrong side of a firing squad.
From the comments in the Anne Rice response:
“fauxpology:
n. An insincere apology made for political or social reasons because to fail to do so would result in loss of face.”
I love that word! And will be watching for the fauxpologies that occur in the political world ― especially during election season when political Lynn Shepherds show up all over the map.
BTW, has anyone ever read her books?
Pat — You mean Lynn Shepherd’s books? Kinda doubt it. She was getting only a few not-great reviews on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Solitary-House-Novel-Lynn-Shepherd/dp/0345532430/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1393364529&sr=1-1&keywords=lynn+shepherd) — and that was before people saw her poisonous screed on HuffPo and started coming in with the one-star, “I haven’t read anything Shepherd’s ever written, but since she thinks its okay to trash other writers while proudly proclaiming her ignorance of their works, here I am to do the same to her” type reviews.
Those who’ve done the “look inside” thing have reported that her prose is boring, her genre cliched, and she hasn’t done enough research to spot her own anachronisms.
Thanks Claire. I could have looked up Shepherd on Amazon, but I wasn’t sure she was worth knowing about, anyway.
I meant ― had anyone here read her?
“I meant ― had anyone here read her?”
Sorry, I knew you did. I could have been more clear. I meant that since she’s such an obscure and apparently not very talented author, and apparently of such artsy-lefty bent, that I figured few anywhere had read her and probably nobody here.
It does occur to me (and I gather a few others) the the whole ghastly anti-Rowling screed might have just been a ploy to get her books noticed. That’s why I added the Amazon link. She’s getting noticed, all right. And in ways she probably never considered in her vast, arrogant cluelessness.
After all the attention Ms. Shepherd is getting, I feel inclined to say just a few words about Ms. Korn. As a “joint history of science and studies of women, gender and sexuality concentrator,” she is undoutedbly aware of the systemic racism and gender discrimination at Harvard. Consider, for example, Math 55, where the final class roster, according to The Crimson, is “45 percent Jewish, 18 percent Asian, 100 percent male.”
I would like to suggest, in the interests of “academic justice,” that taking and passing Math 55 be added as a non-negotiable graduation requirement for all “women, gender and sexuality” concentrators at Harvard (starting with Ms. Korn), given that the “demographics of students taking this course over the years has been used to study causes of gender and race differences in the fields of mathematics and technology.”
We need to be fair, you know.
😉
Ha, Dana, you’re wicked. In a good, good way. But wicked.
And fair. Yes, very, very fair. In a wicked way.
Math equality for all genders! (Says she who dropped algebra in the eighth grade and had to go back and try trig and calculus in her 30s.)
As a hard-core Larry Correia fan (and he’s very tickled that you linked this!) I love it when Larry fisks someone. He doesn’t do it very often, as he is too busy writing books that people read (and that I highly recommend for sheer entertainment value – Monster Hunter International slogan: Monsters Exist – Cowboy Up – Kill Them – Get Paid. He’s a former gun shop owner, expert marksman, quite tongue in cheek and has a bunch of books for everyone. I’ve loaned/bought his books for sons and son in law, recommended them to tons of people and had fun with them.